Tag Archives: Hiking

Athens Final 2015

Our time in Greece was really relaxing. We had grand plans to visit a lot of the countryside and go out to some of the islands but instead we ended up hanging out in Athens, enjoying the food, going to the ancient sights, and watching the protests.

Going to the 4th of July event was probably the best experience we had. We’ve been gone for 11 months and it was fun to watch fireworks, eat hot dogs, and hang out with Americans. Generally it is not enjoyable to come across a lot of Americans in a group while traveling but the 4th of July event was very good and we were happy to go!

We were really surprised by the food. It was pretty much nothing like Greek food in the US. Even the things we thought would be the same, like gyros, had French fries inside the wrap! We really enjoyed the flavors and all the offerings. There was a little restaurant next to where we were staying and I would go there to get a gyro pretty much every day. Soon enough they recognized me and then I noticed my gyros were getting bigger and bigger! Another real treat was finding baklava. Normally baklava is pretty expensive in the US, like $4 for a very small slice. I found a bakery near us that sold pie sized baklava for about $11, that’s a steal, so I bought two!

The ancient sights were really neat. We weren’t staying too far from them so we’d visit in the afternoon when the sun started to go down and the crowds cleared out. It’s rather amazing what people thousands of years ago could build!

We watched a lot of protests while we were in Greece. I happened to walk through the main square where people protest and was there when the voting results were announced. Like all the other protests, everyone was really laid back, it was calm, and it felt more like the State Fair in Minnesota. It now appears as though things will get much worse for the Greeks before they get better. That said, as tourists we were nearly unaffected; had we not been scrambling to get euros like everyone else when the banks first closed we would not have even realized Greece had issues.

We had a really good time in Greece. We arrived on a Saturday and the banks were closed that Monday; left on a Thursday and the banks re-opened the next Monday. Seems like we brought the bad luck for the Greeks :).

[Show slideshow]

Enjoy the photos!

Chris W.

Southern Bulgaria 2015

2 Replies

We were so lucky during the second half our trip through Bulgaria. We didn’t really know what we were getting ourselves into and didn’t know what to expect. We were in the mountains in southern Bulgaria and were able to visit some really cool caves, meet some awesome people, stay in some neat places, and go on some great hikes in gorgeous scenery.

We had no idea Bulgaria was so beautiful. We were here at the right time to see all the mountain flowers in bloom and we had good weather throughout. Tourism isn’t quite in swing yet so we had a chance to talk to our hosts and learn about their lives in Bulgaria. Much like everywhere else they were concerned about the same big three.

Bulgaria is made for outdoors activities. They have different mountain types throughout the country, from rolling mountains like the Appalachians to rugged mountains like the Pacific NW. The tallest mountain is around 9,000ft so pretty much everywhere is traversable by foot and the trailheads are easily accessed by car. Great views can be had pretty quickly, we would only hike for 30min to 1hr before trails would open up and give great views making the reward:effort ratio off the chart. Even the most popular trails are not crowded because of the time of year so we had a lot of time by hiking by ourselves enjoying nature in peace.

There are chalets, huts, and lodges people can stay at while hiking through the mountains. They range from basic (walls & door) to electricity, cafeteria, heat, hot water, internet, etc. We only stayed in one chalet and it was a great time. If/when we come back, I would definitely spend more time hiking and spend more nights in the mountains.

The hosts we had in the mountain areas were really cool. In one guesthouse we were pretty much the only guests. The guesthouse was in the middle of nowhere and had no internet so we were hanging out in the dining area killing time before dinner. We were sitting chatting with our host while the TV played traditional Bulgarian music. Soon Jacquelyn found herself learning traditional Bulgarian dance from the host! One of the nights we stayed near Rila Lakes I went out to photograph the night sky around 11PM. The chalet man, an awesome guy named Martin, came out to see what I was doing. We ended up chatting until 2AM while drinking his homemade rakia, a brandy like drink. That was the night I learned I cannot drink like a Bulgarian.

I would have loved to stay in Bulgaria longer, go on more hikes, and explore more of the mountains. Bulgaria has all the attributes we like and is definitely near the top of our favorite countries we’ve visited. Who would have thought? :).

Enjoy the photos!

Chris W.

[Show slideshow]

Northern Bulgaria 2015

Leave a reply

Bulgaria is a strange country. We’ve been to some strange places but Bulgaria stands out as being the most odd in the bunch. We really are enjoying our time in Bulgaria; we are driving a big circle around the country and we’ve noticed the northern part is pretty different than the southern part so I’ve decided to break this up into two parts. We are in the south now and that will part will come once we’ve left Bulgaria.

So Bulgaria is a weird country for a handful of reasons but I want to stress how much we are enjoying our time here. We’ve had some phenomenal experiences that cannot be replicated anywhere else. Bulgaria has all the attributes we enjoy: the people are kind and generous, the sights are magnificent, stellar hiking, the price is right, and all the roads are pretty much paved. There is one huge difference in Bulgaria vs. everywhere else we’ve traveled: the seclusion and the ability to enjoy activities in solitude. It’s truly remarkable!

With that said, it’s a “make your own adventure” place. There’s not a lot of information online, the country really isn’t foreign tourist friendly as spoken English is not common and the few English information boards we find are often useless. There are some wonderful sights we visited that have 2-5 TripAdvisor reviews and no other information online. It’s like international tourism is just starting and they are figuring out all the things they need to make multinational tourism work.

There’s a problem we regularly encounter and we’ve given it the name “the last 5%”. It seems as though there’s enough information for us to get close to the things we want to do but the last 5% of needed information, be it knowing the hours of operation, the cost, the location, part of the route, activities at the destination, etc., are unknown. There’s always enough information to get very close but we have to figure out the last 5% on the way, when we arrive, or while we’re doing the activity. The best example is when we wanted to visit a tourism information center to get a map for a hike only to find out the road became undrivable and we had to walk the last 15min to the center. We were fortunate someone had put the GPS coordinates for the center on TripAdvisor otherwise we would have never found the place! It also applies to our dealings with people and businesses. The first clue things were different in Bulgaria is when we picked up our rental car from Enterprise with ¾’s of a fuel tank, “this is how we things work in Bulgaria” the sales agent after I expressed surprised for not getting a full tank. It’s not necessarily bad, just odd and different.

Bulgaria is super chill; pretty much everyone is really laid back. Once again we are driving around everywhere exploring and stopping to check out cool things we find while roaming around. Just like in Romania, we find ourselves trespassing a lot to see different things but we don’t really know a better way. We may not find the people we need to pay or find the actual entrance for the place we’re trying to visit. No one really cares. The Bulgarian people are very enterprising. It seems wherever a congregation of people could possibly be there is a shop selling food or trinkets. I had remarked to Jacquelyn that I was seeing a lot of women on the side of the road and it was really strange to see all these women dressed like they are going to a nightclub waiting for buses out in the middle of nowhere . She replied, “Chris, they are prostitutes”. Then it made sense; Jacquelyn’s comprehension skills are one of the many reasons why I keep her around J.

For about the first week we had bad luck with food, it was like we were living in bizzaro world. Things we ordered were nothing like what we envisioned. Everything we ordered seemed to be drenched in cheese, oil, cream or all of those items. One time we thought we were ordering cheese bread only to find we ordered two slices of deep fried cheese each about the size of Texas Toast. The most hilarious mix up occurred when I ordered a “local salad” only to get all the ingredients unprepared on a plate! Jacquelyn ordered a different type of salad and hers came prepared. There was no price difference between our salads so I wasn’t even able to save money due to the lack of preparation! It took a lot of mistakes but we’re now ordering absolutely delicious food and have come to thoroughly enjoy traditional Bulgarian food.

Now, on to the things that make Bulgaria uniquely awesome. There are so many Roman/Turkish/Bulgarian historical sights all throughout this small country a person could probably spend months touring around and never see it all. Outside of Sofia and a couple other touristy areas, there’s pretty much no one visiting the sights, especially international tourists. We thought Romania had a dearth of tourist but we regularly find ourselves alone. There is a lot of great hiking around the country. We went to an area called Belogradchick near the Serbia/Romania border and found an area a lot like where I grew up in the Black Hills – similar trees and rolling mountains but sandstone instead of granite. It was awesome to have some alone time on the trail and enjoy nature free from the ruckus of humanity. The solitude and seclusion has been absolutely amazing and rejuvenating. There are a lot of natural wonders that are beautiful like massive caves, mountains, and waterfalls. We had no idea Bulgaria had such diverse sights to visit

There are still a lot of communist relics littered about and they are endlessly fascinating to us. Just driving down the highway we’d see abandoned monuments with massive statues dedicated to the people and the workers. Socialism started in the early 1920s and there was an monument built by the communists on the site of the first socialist meeting. The monument, called Buzludzha, was used as a meeting place during communism and since been abandoned and fallen into disrepair. Before we visited we had asked many locals how to find the place and how to get in; almost all the locals thought we were insane for wanting to visit. Since it’s technically closed we were only able to get in after crawling through a hole someone made in a wall. Once we were in it was very eerie and enough of the décor remains to give a flavor for how the building looked when it was in use. It was a surreal experience

We thought the first half of our time in Bulgaria was really cool and fun but the second half is just as good if not better but that’s for next time :).

Enjoy the photos!

Chris W.

[Show slideshow]

Transylvania Part One 2015

Leave a reply

Our time in Transylvania has been amazing. Even though we’ve been here for two weeks it seems like we just scratched the surface. This area has made a very lasting impression on us and the combination of what we found in Transylvania doesn’t really exist anywhere else in the world. The beautiful scenery, outdoor activities, awesome people, good food, chill demeanor, historical sights, ease of access to the things we want to do, and great values make Transylvania the most under-rated place we’ve ever visited. There is a lot I want to share so I’m going to break this up into two posts. #1 The easy stuff: scenery, tourism industry, and driving in Transylvania. #2 The amazing experiences we’ve had with the people of Transylvania and the delicious food they make. I’m still working on #2 so that’ll come sometime later.

First things first: it wasn’t easy figuring out what to see in Transylvania. Normally, if someone wants to tour a European country the first thing they should do is find Rick Steve’s materials on the country. We were surprised to find Rick Steve’s doesn’t have a guide for Romania and even recommended people skip Romania. The next thing we turned to was TripAdvisor only to find there wasn’t a lot listed. The places that were listed didn’t have a whole lot of reviews and the descriptions of the places were pretty poor. Sites like the Lonely Planet and Wikitravel didn’t help much either. We’ve never encountered a dearth of information like this so we made our own itinerary and figured we’d see at least one cool thing during our two week drive through Transylvania. We ended up being completely surprised by how many things there were to do, how much fun the sites were and, best of all, we pretty much had the tourist places to ourselves because there isn’t a huge tourism scene. We knew Romania had mountains but we had no idea it had so many mountains and with the largest continuous forest in Central Europe. Transylvania has some very stunning scenery. It was really easy to find outdoor activities to do and it didn’t take a whole lot of work to see jaw-dropping beauty. I put some photos up and they really speak for themselves – Romania is very beautiful.

Romania has a rich history of being conquered, subjugated, and passed around by outside forces going back thousands of years. Romania, as we know it today, didn’t exist until after World War One. Because of this, there are a lot of fortifications all over the place dating back to Roman times and even some villages have churches with very large fortifications. A lot of the sites we visited were at some stage of refurbishment, it seemed like everything was under construction. We learned that a lot of EU money and tourist money is being used to make the tourist sites better, which is good, because a lot of historical sites are pretty dumpy and only some are in great condition. There was a huge positive benefit of the dumpiness: we could pretty much wander around anywhere, open doors, peek in everything, and thoroughly explore everywhere, and there were very few “fun police” running around ruining our time. This is pretty different than most tourist sites we’ve visited around the world. We also spent a lot of time trespassing because sites would be closed when they were supposed to be open or we were just interested in visiting. Unlike other places in the world, no one ran us off and no one seemed to get mad! People were generally happy to see us when we were trespassing. After setting off an alarm in one building, we were welcomed with open arms and later given dinner – but that’s a story for part two .

Since we didn’t find a lot of information about what to visit, we’d always ask people for recommendations on what to see during our visit. Almost always people would bring up a salt mine near Turda. We had read about it and planned on visiting it, but it was surprising so many people thought a salt mine was cool. It had its own aura with the locals, the salt mine would come up in conversation and people would pause and say something like, “Oh yes, it’s a very good place. You must go.” So the day arrives and we visit; I never thought a salt mine would be cool but it was awesome! The salt mine had been turned into a mini amusement park complete with a Ferris wheel, mini-golf, pool tables, bowling, row boats, and tons of areas to sit around and chill. Salt crystals were growing everywhere on everything, even the air was salty. Every so often I’d lick my lips and taste salt! It was a really cool visit!

The cost is right for tourism. Most tourist attractions were generally$2-$3 per person to visit, some were free, and the very few ‘expensive’ places, like Bran Castle, were only $7-$10. It was amazing we could go to so many places and see such cool stuff for so little money. In more expensive countries we generally have to choose what we want to do and make some type of judgement call on what we want to see. Not in Romania, we could visit everything! Food, lodging, rental cars, etc., were all pretty reasonable too. We could go out and have a very good three course meal with drinks and desert for $15-$20. That’s a very good deal!

The biggest downside for a tourist had to be getting around. Driving in Romania is insane. The bigger cities are filled with seemingly suicidal drivers and the countryside is filled with dirt roads in bad condition. In the first five minutes with our rental car, I discovered our horn was disconnected. After the first day of driving I told Jacquelyn that we should be prepared to pay for damages for our rental car because there’s no way the car was coming back unscathed. The crap mountain roads, extremely narrow streets, and everyone trying to drive over us was terrifying! That said, I’m thankful for two things which came in very helpful in Transylvania: 1) spending endless hours driving on the gravel back roads of the Black Hills during high school really taught me how to make decent time on crap roads, 2) driving in Albany, NY and Chicago for a year taught me how to deal with super bad and super crazy drivers. We ended up being completely fine and even returned the rental car in one rather muddy piece. These two experiences helped make sure we stayed on the road, didn’t hit anything, and nothing hit us!

So the scenery, the tourist sites, and the trip through Romania was awesome. Even if we hadn’t spoken to a single person in the country, Romania would still be near the top of our list of favorite countries we’ve visited. The unique and extremely awesome part of our trip occurred from all the interactions we’ve had with others and I’ll write about that later!

Enjoy the photos!

Chris W.

[Show slideshow]

Montenegro 2015

Leave a reply

Montenegro was spectacular! We only had a few days in the country so we didn’t see much. The parts we did see were amazing! The scenery is unlike anything we’ve seen before and we thoroughly enjoyed our time.

Montenegro is a new-ish nation after gaining full independence in 2006 from Serbia. Prior to about a month ago, if someone asked me to locate Montenegro on the map I’m pretty sure I would have looked very hard at Africa. While we were planning our trip through the Balkans I happened to see a recommendation for a day trip into Montenegro from Croatia because “it is close and worth it”. After reading this advice and learning where Montenegro was located, we decided to stop for a few days in Kotor, Montenegro.

Once we left Croatia it was clear we were in an area where road rules were more suggestions than anything else. We saw stoplights but we didn’t see any in use so crossing someone’s right of way in an intersection was sometimes a rather hairy experience. Besides driving, the feel is very similar to everything else we had experienced on the Dalmatian Coast and the food was similar too. The city was built in Roman times and then it was a very important Venetian city for trade. The Venetian Republic’s emblem, the lion with wings, can be found in multiple places around the city and in the city walls. The old town itself is tiny and pretty much has no straight streets. The old town had a super-chill feeling to it and there weren’t mobs of tourists like what we saw in Dubrovnik. On our last day, four cruise ships showed up and the town still didn’t feel like it was too crowded.

There are some large walls protecting the city and they go up the mountainside behind the city. I hiked up to the top and enjoyed a great view. In Kotor, the city walls are not refurbished so there’s quite a few areas with loose rocks, big steps, or steep drop-offs. There are multiple paths to the top and there’s really only one good path with the rest being labeled “high risk” in the pamphlet they give all tourists. It doesn’t matter though, tourists can go anywhere they choose and make any adventure they deem appropriate, high risk or low risk. This is pretty common in a lot of places we’ve visited and is pretty different than the US where many things are closed off due to safety concerns. I imagine if tourists die they simply think “no matter, there will be more”.

While hiking the walls in Kotor, I managed to meet a fellow American around my age and quickly learned he had lived in South Dakota and Albert Lea. Being in Montenegro and being someone who has lived in Minnesota and South Dakota, I’m pretty this made us family.

Our time in Kotor was too short! It was a stunningly beautiful place and a place we really enjoyed. Our time there was nearly perfect and I’m not sure how it could have been any better!

Enjoy the photos!

Chris W.

[Show slideshow]

New Zealand 2015

Leave a reply

New Zealand was OK. We ended up spending two weeks on the rainy southern island and a week on the north island where were introduced to Cyclone Pam. I guess what I’m trying to say is that the weather wasn’t great during the three weeks we were there and the good luck we’ve had with weather for the last six months ran out. We had planned on spending a great deal of time outdoors and hiking but were typically relegated to the indoors due to crap weather. The parts of New Zealand we did see were fairly pretty and we did manage to find some neat things to do.

New Zealand is an odd place: incomes aren’t all that high yet things are extremely expensive or exceptionally poor values, nothing is really that close together (we put 2,000mi on our rental) yet driving is pretty much the best way to get around, kiwi’s speak English yet they have really funny accents, everyone we met is OK with living in a very geologically active country where they could easily be wiped off the face of the earth, and there are tourists everywhere – about 3million people visit New Zealand, a country with a population of 4.4million. Tourist fatigue was very pervasive.

I think the word indifferent best describes our interactions with most New Zealanders. We haven’t run into this too often on our travels but it was surprising. If I were to guess it’s simply because of the sheer number of tourists that inundate their little islands – tourists are everywhere at all times. We had a pretty hilarious interaction with a New Zealand couple we met through Airbnb: they stated that they “really liked America and Americans” and when I asked why I found out it’s because “Americans are stuffy and so full of themselves”. I wasn’t sure how to take that.

Things, in general, were a pretty poor value. We can handle expensive, that’s not a problem. Poor value is different. Fuel was about $6/gal, food was insanely expensive and lodging, in most places, was the most we’ve ever paid. It was mind blowing to me that we stayed in a place that was $135/night and they didn’t provide WiFi or even change our sheets! We had arranged other tours and activities, like flightseeing, but ended up cancelling them because we were so underwhelmed with what we saw and experienced in New Zealand; we were done giving the country money.

There were three great experiences that really stood out. First was when we were in a lake and the bottom of the lake was heated by the thermal activity in the area. We sunk our feet into the sand and had a free spa day. I felt fabulous. Second was when we met an super cool family through Airbnb. They happily showed us around, brought us to their favorite fish and chips place and gave us some great advice on where to visit. The last awesome experience occurred on our last night in New Zealand when we met Jacquelyn’s relatives who moved to New Zealand from the US back in the early 80s; we had an awesome chat and learned about their unique perspective of New Zealand. It was great to end our time in New Zealand on a high note.

So, overall, I don’t think we’d rush back to New Zealand. We didn’t find any reason to travel half way around the world to see New Zealand; we’ve been other places that have similar landscapes that have better weather and better value for the money.

Enjoy the photos!

Chris W.

[Show slideshow]

Australia 2015

2 Replies

Our expectations of Australia were blown out of the water, it was awesome. We didn’t see much, just visited between Brisbane and Sydney which is a similar distance as Boston and Washington DC. Australia is the first developed country we have visited in about three months and, unlike last time, it wasn’t quite as large of a shock for us visiting a developed nation. We had some amazing hosts, met some incredible people, did/ate/drank quintessential Australian things, and had some great walks in rainforests. There were only two downsides: all the poisonous / venomous plants and animals, and the absolutely craptacular internet and cell reception throughout the small part of country we visited.

We didn’t do a great deal of research on Australia before we showed up. Since the place was settled by convicts we thought, naturally, that it wouldn’t be that great. We thought it was filled with poisonous and deadly animals / plants, lots of dirt, dry, with tumbleweeds rolling around and an opera house near some water somewhere. Except for the deadly plants and animals, we were wrong. It was wonderful to get out into the country and have some peace and quiet far from other people after being in Asia / Indian subcontient for so long. We had forgotten what clean forests, clean air and quiet were. The national parks provided great walks and stunning views.

We were introduced to the amazing hospitality and generosity of Australians, it was next-level hospitality that I didn’t realize could exist. It’s like “Minnesota nice” except Australians are actually nice, mean what they say, and happily invited Jacquelyn and I into their lives! We were able to catch up with two families we met while traveling in Turkey and Vietnam and even stayed three days with one family; none of them batted an eye at meeting or hosting us. It was a deeply enriching experience for us because we were able to learn a lot about Australia and Australian culture. We learned a lot of “Australian”, definitely not English, but “Australian”, from the families. We were able to eat and do all sorts of Australian things: eat kangaroo, do the Tim Tam Slam, ate pavlova, learned how to play cricket from a very good teacher, watched a ruby game and learned how it was played, hiked in at least two different types of rainforest, drank all sorts of Australian beers and wines, called someone “mate” and learn some derogatory Australian phrases. It was great!

We had a few comical things happen to us pretty quickly in Australia: 1) We came across a venomous snake 15minutes into our very first hike. Jacquelyn hates snakes. That was the first of about eight hikes we had planned. We were off to a bad start. 2) the first meal we ordered were french fries and an apple crumble – so healthy! It’s easy to get fries and pastries in lesser developed countries but they are generally crap. It was nice to have good junk food! 3) We were missing Vietnamese food and found a Vietnamese restaurant that was recommended to us by some locals. Soon after we ate we both came down with the runs!

We had a rental car and it was the first time I drove in the last five months. I’m getting used to driving on the wrong side of the road since every vehicle I’ve driven, outside our first week of travel, has been on the wrong side of the road. Kangaroos ended up being quite the road hazard out in the bush so we took it slow. Thankfully, the Australians were some of the most polite drivers we’ve been around.

There is a lot to like about Australia but mostly we were shocked by how awesome the people where. It was no big deal for Australians to take a significant amount of time and money to teach us about their country and shows us the things they love. Truly a remarkable thing. With the awesome people and great scenery, I can understand why so many people want to move to Australia!

Enjoy the photos!

Chris W.

[Show slideshow]

Cambodia 2015

Leave a reply

Cambodia, specifically Siem Reap, was amazing. Truly, one of the greatest visits for us on this trip. We were only in Cambodia for four days which ended up being far too short.

Siem Reap is the home of Angkor Wat and a bunch of other temple complexes; it’s the ancient capitol of Cambodia. We aren’t really ‘ruins’ people and don’t much care to see historical buildings so we had pretty low expectations going in to the visit. To help us along, we hired a tuk-tuk driver / guide, Sopheap, to bring us around to the sites because everything is spread pretty far apart. The places we visited were spectacular. So much so, we took about 2,800 photos – a new personal record in photos / day for me.

First thing off the plane we realized most everything is priced in US Dollars. That, in itself, isn’t all that weird and we’ve seen it a lot. The difference was that we could use USD to buy everything and ATMs even dispensed USD! We haven’t seen $5s, $10s, $20s or many $100s since leaving the US so it was pretty weird to see everyone, including Europeans and Cambodians, using USD all over the place. When we used USD to make a purchase we would get Cambodian Riel for anything less than $1 in change. Very quickly I had a huge wad of dollars and Riel. I felt like a high roller with the wad but it really amounted to about $8.77. Not high roller status, not even in a country like Cambodia.

The next really odd thing happened when we went to find dinner the first night. We wandered around the super touristy area called Pub Street and quickly stumbled across multiple, yes multiple, Mexican restaurants and bars. We love Mexican food, we haven’t had Mexican food since we left the US, why not have some food we love? We find a decent table, get some margaritas to wash down our chips & salsa, and ask each other – are we in bizzaro world? Like, is this real life? The food and drinks weren’t exact but they were close enough given Mexico and Cambodia are 9,677 miles apart . We ended up having quite a bit of local, Khmer, food and really loved it. Khmer food was like the food we had in Thailand but deliciously different.

Cambodia had a terrible tragedy with the rise of the Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge and the subsequent genocide of its populace. I didn’t learn a whole lot about South East Asia in school, especially the history of the area. I knew that the US bombed Cambodia during the Vietnam War but I didn’t know that the carpet bombing of Cambodia by the US during the Vietnam War was the catalyst for Pol Pot and his regime. It was quite surreal to tour the landmine museum and see massive amounts of ordinance from the US that never exploded or was dug up. Even today, many Cambodians are killed or injured from landmines left over during the Vietnam War. Very sad.

Sopheap did a lot for us and we are very thankful. On top of driving us around everywhere, he took us to his friend’s wedding, he brought us out to dinner on our last night, and he shared his stories of growing up and what life is like for the people living in Cambodia. Without him, the experience would not have been nearly as rich. He helped make our visit around Siem Reap the best on our entire trip.

Overall, this visit was a 10/10. We would absolutely go back.

Enjoy the photos!

Chris W.

[Show slideshow]

China 2014 & 2015

Leave a reply

So, where to begin with China? To start, China is a huge country with huge everything. China is the ‘Texas’ of the world. China: has the world’s largest population, has five of the top 10 tallest buildings, used more concrete in 2011-2013 than the US did in all of the 20^th century, uses the second largest rail network, contains seven of the top 10 busiest shipping ports, and, every year, has the world’s largest human migration, about 200million, for Lunar New Year. A national park we visited has 30million visitors a year which is about the same as the top seven national parks in the US. Prior to the Great Recession, about a quarter of all construction cranes in the world were in Shanghai. I think it’s one of the few places in the world where a person can see new infrastructure and buildings every visit. With each of my four trips to Shanghai over the last four years, the skyline looked appreciably different each time!

Unlike my last visits, which were always for work and about work, we wandered around the country and saw quite a bit. We visited big cities like Beijing and Shanghai while also spending a good deal of time out in the mountains away from the terrible air pollution. We had the chance to do “homestays” where we lived with local Chinese and even celebrated New Years with our hosts’s friends and family. They were amazing experiences. We had very open discussions with many different individuals about far ranging subjects from: voting, shooting guns, the Cultural Revolution, economic outlook, cultural norms, one child policy and political corruption. I’m not sure why guns came up so often but pretty much everyone wanted to talk about guns. Some would ask if I had used a gun and then their eyes would grow large when I told them I had shot many guns at many different things. One gentleman kindly taught Jacquelyn and I Chinese calligraphy and traditional Chinese painting. Jacquelyn’s a good artist but my creations would embarrass any parents if put on their refrigerator.

China was incredibly easy to travel through. We had next to no language issues even though it’s the least English speaking country we’ve visited and found many ‘allies’ for help along the way. Here’s a great example: we were in a rather touristy area that was off season so there were no other foreigners, let alone English signs, around. We needed to get from X to Y and took a bus. Someone showed us the correct bus to take but we soon realized we had no idea where to get off. Luckily, the bus driver remembered where most foreigners go, stopped the bus, opened the doors and muttered some Chinese while pointing back and forth to us and the bus door. Turns out, that’s where we needed to get off! Overwhelming, our experiences were like this in China. We were met with kindness, gratitude, and openness all along the way. Only a few times did people try to scam us. One that stands out as being particularly funny was when we took a tuk-tuk in Beijing and the driver refused to give me about $2 in change I was due. At this point in our travels, Jacquelyn and I work really well as a team; I stood in front of the tuk-tuk, so he couldn’t drive away, and started to yell at him. Right away, Jacquelyn joined the fray and was in his face yelling too. I’m pretty sure the guy was used to rolling westerners and westerners not getting upset about losing $2 because he was extremely surprised and quickly acquiesced. Many people have tried to scam us in our journey but we’ve become pretty good at dealing with scammers.

The Cultural Revolution destroyed most cool things in China so pretty much everything, including huge portions of the Forbidden City, are rebuilds or replacements. Other than some of the really big cities in China like Shanghai and Beijing, the cities are pretty void of a cultural heart like would be found in most western cities. We stayed overnight in Guilin while transiting across China, which had a population of about six million people, and is not a lot different in population than Chicago & suburbs. Most of the buildings were done up in the Soviet Style awesomeness; there was a nice lake to walk around and that was about it. To fix this issue, China is rapidly building old looking new buildings to attract tourists. It’s cheesy but also pretty hilarious in a sad sort of way.

So now the two bad things about China. First: the air pollution is really, really, really bad. Like, taste-it-in-your-mouth and feel-it-on-the-back-of-your-throat bad. Interestingly, each major city has different smelling / tasting air pollution. Shanghai (burning brakes), Beijing (plastic-ish + burning brakes), Xi’An (dryness+mining+dust+metals), and Shenzhen (metal working + sweet ocean breeze). Some of the cities in China are very beautiful, I look forward to the time where we don’t have to wait for a specific wind direction to get good, pollution free, views. Second: the Chinese people can be incredibly rude and gross. Cutting, shouting, bubble-invading is all very common along with spitting, blowing their nose on inanimate objects, coughing on people, and sneezing on people. I became pretty good at pushing people out of my way, it helps I’m a lot larger than most Chinese and I would generally just plow my way through willy-nilly. I’m sure those folks didn’t mind being pushed out of the way but I can’t be sure because I never looked back. Amazingly, the Manners Police are out in full force. I first saw the Manners Police in my last visit to Shanghai back in early 2013. They ran around and yelled at people doing gross things. Spitting openly is down significantly, tissues are used by most for blowing a nose, I only saw a couple people urinating in public, every person I saw was dressed, and I didn’t see anyone defecating in public anywhere. That’s progress!

We loved our time in China. We were lucky enough to celebrate 10yrs of being together, Christmas and New Years there. We very much look forward to going back!

Enjoy the photos!

Chris W.

[Show slideshow]

Nepal 2014

Leave a reply

The trip through Nepal was pretty incredible. We ended up staying another week and a half in Kathmandu before leaving the country. During that time we ended up getting some good R&R, visited the medieval city of Bhaktapur, our guide went to some different temples with us in the Kathmandu valley, had some great food and I had my first haircut outside of the US.

The remaining time in Nepal was well spent. We took the time to relax for awhile and recharge our batteries after the rigorous hike in the Himalaya. Much like in the mountains, the Nepali people in the city were just nice, just as hard working and just as great to be around. We traipsed through Thamel and discovered some great Western restaurants. We even found a bar a lot like would be found in the US called Tom and Jerry’s. It wasn’t until we found Tom & Jerry’s in Thamel that I realized how much I missed home – western music was playing, the beer was delicious and Jacquelyn greatly enjoyed her margaritas. It was weird to think that we’ve only been on the road for about two months and already I was starting to miss some of the things I enjoyed at home.

It was fun to see all the people from Europe and North America dress up in Nepali clothes and walk around saying “namaste” while bobbing their heads and holding their hands together. It seemed as though white women in their 20s to early 30s were the most susceptible to acquiring the local’s identities even if the locals didn’t really wear the traditional Nepali clothes or walk around bobbing their heads and saying “namaste”. Overall, it was pretty hilarious. It’s akin to the folks I used to work with that would drink the corporate kool-aid and become “Mr. or Ms. Corporation” but instead of corporate speak and buzzwords these travelers would speak horribly mangled Hindi and look like idiots. At the very least, I hope their traditional Nepali clothes were comfortable.

It was great to see our guide again and we were really happy he brought us around to different temples in Kathmandu. We really like Sandesh, it’s too bad he had tragedy befall his family but the Nepali people are an incredibly strong bunch and if anyone can handle it, it’d be the Nepali’s.

At the end of the day, we weren’t quite ready to leave Nepal. It was such a wonderful country and we had such a great time there. Someday, it’d be great to go back.

Enjoy the photos!

Chris W.

[Show slideshow]